Rupert Downes - Education and Early Life

Education and Early Life

Rupert Major Downes was born on 10 February 1885 in Mitcham, South Australia. He was the youngest of fifteen children of Colonel Major Francis Downes—a British Army officer—and his wife Helen Maria, formerly Chamberlin, only five of whom survived to adulthood. After service in the Crimean War, Colonel Francis Downes served as commandant of the Colonial forces of South Australia and Victoria and retired with the rank of major general in the Australian Army in 1902.

Rupert was educated at Haileybury, Melbourne as a boarding student. In March 1901, at the age of 16, he joined the Victorian Horse Artillery (St Kilda Battery), a part-time volunteer militia unit, as a trumpeter. In May 1901 he served in this capacity at the opening of the inaugural Parliament of Australia by The Duke of Cornwall and York at the Royal Exhibition Building. In 1903, Downes became a medical student at the University of Melbourne. A good result in his first year examinations earned him a residential scholarship to Ormond College, and he graduated with the double degree of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 1907.

Soon after graduation, Downes enlisted in the Militia. He was commissioned as a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps on 1 July 1908 and was promoted to major on 26 March 1913. He served his residency at Melbourne Hospital and became a general practitioner in Malvern, Victoria, but soon returned to the university to pursue a doctorate. His Doctor of Medicine (MD) thesis, entitled "The anatomical relations of the Thymus, especially considered in regard to thymic death with an account of cases of abnormality", was accepted in 1911. He also did the coursework for a Master of Surgery (MS), and this degree was conferred in 1912.

Downes married Doris Mary Robb on 20 November 1913 at St John's Church, Toorak, Victoria. They had three children: Rosemary Major, born in 1914; Valerie Major, born in March 1918; and John Rupert Major, born in 1922.